When Chumby started, there was no iPhone.

The iPhone in general completely altered the entire consumer electronics landscape.  Companies that were considered untouchable industry giants are now hanging on by their toenails - RIM, HP, Nokia, Sony, even Microsoft is in trouble.  All but one brick and mortar retailer are gone. Couple that with the worst global economy in 80 years, and it's tough for anyone, let alone a small startup, to get traction.  Many "successful" products have hundreds of millions of dollars and many years behind them to get to break even - Xbox being a good example. It's reasonable to say that in the consumer electronics industry there's only one company doing well - Apple.

Even then, Apple has a phone carrier subsidy model built around it that hides (actually spreads out) the actual costs. Try buying an iPhone at retail without a multi-year data plan, for instance.

That particular article concentrates a lot on product execution but is missing some other critical things that bunnie talked about.  Even if you have the perfect product, you need millions of dollars in marketing to support it, which Chumby didn't have.  All these other companies could subsidize their new products during their growth phase with income from other products.

As to losses - whatever losses our investors may have incurred, it's *nothing* compared to the losses in value in the other companies in this industry.  Some of these companies have lost hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars of value over Chumby's lifetime.

I believe, as I think you do, that the Chumby fills a void which still exists even in a world with smartphones and tablets. Most people that actually have a Chumby recognize that - but you kinda have to have one to to see why.